It's been known that in VCS the credits are triggered after completing the required mission chains in Chapter 3, regardless of the order you complete the missions. For a long time, Fry and me have been theorising about the possibility of skipping Last Stand via duping Over the Top. Quite a few months ago Fry successfully cutscene-duped the mission, but it could not be completed because the marker that leads inside the admin building is broken and softlocks the game.
However, last week Fry discovered that you can actually trigger the escape sequence of the mission by entering the Hunter before entering the admin building. This can be achieved by megajumping from the small building which you enter the army base from.
The video below shows the setup + the dupe itself. (Yes, it also works on real PSP - Fry has tested it.)
COMPARISON: Top-Left: Duped w/ MJ Top-Right: Unduped w/ MJ Bottom-Left: Unduped w/o MJ Muted version: (in case it's copyrekt in your country)
DIFFICULTY: The cutscene dupe (just like in the case of other cutscene dupes) can crash or softlock the game if it is failed (timed incorrectly). Currently, the most consistent method to get it successfully is to:
- skip cinematic cutscene when rampage fails
- wait ~1 second
- spam X a little (until Loading text disappears?)
- wait
- cinematic cutscene starts playing (sometimes it doesn't though), can be skipped. (This might sound confusing at first, but it will work when you start trying.) When you respawn outside Diaz's mansion, you get the dupe even when you seemingly didn't. This is something that you can only really tell when you get to the cutscene where you meet Phil. (Although getting the 30k ammo from the Rampage is a good indicator.) For me, the dupe was harder to perform than Snitch Hitch
NOTES: 1.) RNG-ing a Police Car on the way Downtown and using the Drive-By rampage on top of the staircase across Ammu-Nation is not faster. You can't bring a Police Bike from Light My Pyre because cinematic cutscene at the end of the mission despawns it. Compared to the shorter drive, you lose time for having the Uzi instead of the MP5 when destroying the Mendez car on the bridge. RNG-ing a Police Bike on the drive hasn't been timed as far as I know, but I am expecting a similar result.
2.) If you duped OoT but missed the megajump, the backup is to drive a Barracks OL next to the the fence and use that jump over. This loses a lot of time because the soldiers can wreck it in seconds as you're driving there, requiring you to kill most of them, but it's the only way to complete the mission at that point.
3.) For some reason, the interior of Diaz's mansion is located above Little Haiti, close to where you deliver the tank in Sir Yes Sir. Sometimes after a successful dupe you can get teleported there and skip the sequence with the Mendez car. However, getting this requires a different timing method from the one we currently know.
4.) Obviously, the sequence break by itself saves a good amount of time and it's worth doing even if you're not going for the OoT dupe. In this case, the fastest way to get a megajump weapon is to run on top of the ship in Viceport while driving the Cheetah to Phil. (Getting Remote Grenades during So Long Schlong was also considered but the idea was quickly dismissed.)
CONSEQUENCES: The reality of a possible OoT dupe skipping the last mission in the game but not the credits, raises the need to change the way Any% runs are timed. Timing should end when the credits are reached, instead of on the death of both final bosses.
Share your thoughts below. :)
